A Whimsical Daily Diary From Deep Within A Random Mind

Confusing The Chaffinches

Shaken to the very core, this morning was spent coming to terms with being informed by my family that I possess a soupson of annoying habits.

The most irritating I perpetrate apparently the whistling language I occasionally slip into in the privacy of chez Strachan. I don’t undertake this stupidity outside of the home, imagining it would disturb people who didn’t know I was merely messing about self-indulgently.

However, to get a reaction of irritation from my brood, our house has been known to reverberate to my strange whistling vernacular. During these times, I communicate via a shrill elongated toot through my teeth, for every word uttered containing the letter ‘s’.

I’m informed by my wife that these piercing whistles are on the same annoyance sphere as someone scraping their finger nails down a chalk board, or the feeling she gets when breaking up polystyrene.

The latter phobia proved very stressful for my wee spouse when she worked in the polystyrene disposal team at Polystyrene World…… On her employ there, I noted an evening greeting of “Hassssss today been sssssplendid, Mrssss Sssssstrachan?” didn’t get much of a laugh….. The moody mare!

My son, who left home a few years back, likens this piercing shrill to the whistling of a hob kettle when it boils. I’d like to clarify, he didn’t leave home because of my whistling language; his departure to York was to further his education…… Although he did say after leaving, it was good to finally make a cuppa with water he knew had definitely boiled.

I’m advised that there are many reasons why this shrill tooting through my teeth presses my families buttons. Their predominant gripe being me undertaking the whistling for no purpose other than to deliberately antagonise them….. Sssssselfisssshnesssss on a grand ssssssscale by GJ Ssssssssstrachan.

Mind you, the occupants of our abode don’t have the monopoly on being agitated by my eccentric tooting. When I’m in my garden in the summer months, I utilise it during futile tongue in cheek attempts to converse with the chaffinches dans mon jardin.

Whistling through my teeth in the direction of my feathered garden chums, I always manage to get them to chirp back in response. I’ve no idea what they are tweeting at me, but I am aware that my wife isn’t enamoured by this stupidity. On more than one occasion, bizarrely claiming that my silliness will only confuse them.

I’m not certain how she thinks I’ll confuse them!….. I would imagine my random tooting isn’t a language utilised by chaffinches, so they are probably just muttering to each other “I wish that bloke down there would stop that stupid chuffing whistling, I’ve no bloody idea what he’s saying !”

Saying that, who knows, Karen might have a point and my tongue in cheek attempts at communicating with avians could well be disorientating them.

As intimated by my diminutive missus, I could be inadvertently whistling a mating call, which I wholeheartedly agree would definitely confuse and disorientate my feathered friends.

The chirping I’m hearing in return of to my whistling could merely be a female chaffinch telling another “I don’t fancy yours much!”